The instant invention relates generally to the field of telecommunications and, more specifically to telephones and telephone accessories that limit access to a called telephone under certain conditions.
At the present state-of-the-art the telephone owner is subject to all sorts of unwanted telephone calls. Some of these undesired calls are placed by telephone solicitors, political campaign supporters, and charities. Some calls are merely annoyances and some may include harassment such as calls from bill collectors, ex-spouses, attorneys, children making prank calls, etc.
There is no way, at present to eliminate these calls or to ameliorate the extent to which they are annoying. Individuals have developed strategies to cope with this including hanging up immediately on unsolicited calls, explaining to the caller why the call is unwelcome, and threatening the caller. Legislative action is pending that may limit the use of, for instance, automated telephone soliciting. On occasion it is possible to have ones name removed from a solicitation list, but this is difficult at best.
Another problem is that of callers, sometimes desired callers, placing calls at inconvenient times. While leaving the phone off the hook entirely clearly prevents access during these times, it also prevents legitimate access in true emergencies.
A better solution would be to use some type of automated response system that provides appropriate responses for each of these situations.